


Darkness and Dreaming

by orphan_account



Category: The Grisha Trilogy - Leigh Bardugo
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Snippets
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-25
Updated: 2016-10-25
Packaged: 2018-08-27 00:02:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,136
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8379658
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: “You are the only true otkazat’sya,” she breathed. “Because if you died, I’d still have everything. But if I died, what would you have?”





	

_“Why won’t you leave me alone?” I whispered one night as he hovered behind me while I tried to work at my desk._

_Long minutes passed. I didn’t think he would answer. I even had time to hope he might have gone, until I felt his hand on my shoulder._

_“Then I’d be alone, too," he said, and he stayed the whole night through, till the lamps burned down to nothing._

― **_Leigh Bardugo, Siege and Storm_**

**i.**

The Darkling still had nightmares sometimes. Much as he tried to deny it to the others around him and—with even more care and subtlety—himself, his monster façade still held the faintest traces of humanity underneath. It was the oddest thing, that what he feared in sleeping hours was the thing that brought him grim pleasure in the waking ones, but the inky darkness that clogged his eyes and throat in his dreams often had him bolting to instant awareness. Interestingly enough, the nightmares that had usually only plagued him once or twice a moon were increasing lately. Whether it was the new presence of the Sun Summoner or something else, the Darkling wasn’t completely sure.

On this particular night, the nightmare had been so bad that he had no desire to fall back into sleep, lest it seize his consciousness again. Usually it began with him summoning, putting on a show for the courts or taking down some enemy or another, but tonight it had begun with him unable to summon.

“Lazy. Stupid. Useless,” his mother snorted, young and beautiful as she once had been and never would be again. “What are you without your powers?”

“ _Madraya,_ please,” he found himself pleading, though deep down he knew that wasn’t right. He hadn’t called her that in years, let alone scraped and bowed to her the way he was now. Yet at the cold way she looked down her nose at him, disappointed and icy, he was suffused with shame such that he wanted to run away to tend to his smarting pride in solitude.

“If you have the energy to beg like a filthy _otkazat’sya_ , you should have the energy to summon,” his mother snapped, darkness leaking from her hands and writhing about her like a living thing. “Without this, you’re nothing.”

Sweat dotted his brow as he tried everything to summon, but the power lay just tantalizingly out of his reach. It was like spotting something out of the corner of your eye but every time you turned there was nothing; that was his power. When he reached, it grazed through his fingertips and dissipated into nothing, until he was left shivering in shock with an aching hollowness that he knew nothing would be able to fill.

“If you won’t use it, Eryk, I will. You can be useful as a necklace of bones,” a low, sweet voice sang out, and the wind buffeted the Darkling’s back until suddenly he was falling off of a cliff, his mouth gaping open as he looked back and up at Annika. She stared impassively back, her eyes empty of anything as he crashed onto a thin sheen of ice below the cliff, breaking through it and into freezing water.

“ _Madraya_ ,” he gasped out, fear wrapping its dark fingers around his heart as the cold shock of the water surged into his open mouth and froze his core. He brought fingers already numbing up to claw through the water until his head broke the surface, but Annika was already there. She grasped his hair, her fingers threading tightly through his dark locks, and he only had time for one small breath before she shoved him under again.

Under the water, he struggled with all his might, but Annika’s grip was too tight and his limbs were rapidly growing weaker.

 _Nothing,_ he heard his mother spit, and then his power surged up with all the fury and dignity of his present-day self. Yes, this water was frigid, but it was nothing compared to his soul; the Cut lashed out with deadly purpose as he remembered who he was. He was no longer Arkady—Eryk—who had to fear for his life because weak _otkazat’sya_ didn’t like that Grisha were more powerful than them. He was the Darkling, a force to be respected, admired, and most importantly, feared.

His head burst triumphantly through the dark water again as he stood up, smiling coldly as he forced his dream to accommodate him and make the water only knee-height. Annika was gone, killed by a form of himself that was much weaker than he was now, and—

“W-why…” she whispered, her pale face frozen in a look of dumbfounded shock as she reached down to press a hand to the long slice that ran diagonally up her thin body. The Darkling couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe as he looked upon what he’d done. It wasn’t Annika… it was Alina.

Her knees gave out and he lunged forward, catching her small body and gathering her close, something in him becoming as hollow as it had been when his power was unreachable. She wasn’t looking at him with blame or hatred or fear. No, her wide, chocolate eyes were only filled with an uncomprehending bleakness and the dawning realization that she would die.

“I didn’t mean to,” the Darkling half-whispered. He’d told many lies and half-truths in his life, but this one thing was the complete, whole truth. He’d lived decades, centuries, waiting for one who could be his equal and help fill some part of himself he didn’t quite understand. Although the time he’d known Alina had been relatively short—only a few brief moments compared to what felt like an infinite amount of time—he needed her. He needed her like he needed his power, like he needed the air he breathed.

“Aleksander,” she murmured, eyelashes fluttering against her skin as she drew in horrible, rasping breaths. The Darkling stopped breathing as she brought a hand up to his cheek and laid it there, the warmth from it heating up his soul. He’d never told her his real name, yet it didn’t matter, none of the whimsical non-sense of this mattered. All that mattered was that she was still with him, still drawing breaths, no matter how ragged. He could fix this, he could…

“You are the only true _otkazat’sya,_ ” she breathed. “Because if you died, I’d still have everything. But if I died, what would you have?”

Then, in a blaze of light, she burst apart, leaving him in complete and utter darkness. He called out her name, his voice hoarse, but the darkness captured the name and any other sound that might’ve been made. And then it closed in on him, wrapping around him in a way he’d once found comforting but now found agonizing. He screamed as it forced its way into his mouth, twisting his veins, his heart, his soul. He was no longer the Darkling. He was simply… darkness.

That was when he’d bolted awake, his very real, very human heart pounding a frantic melody in his chest. Now he rose from his bed, cursing the weakness that sought him out in sleep. How ridiculous, to be afraid of becoming something dark when he’d already gone as far as he could go. If there was further, he’d go anyway, since it was required of him to save the Grisha and his country.

The thoughts were calming, but they couldn’t ease him back into bed. Instead, he strode to his closet and pulled out a _kefta_ the colour of a midnight sky. He took care in dressing up, donning both _kefta_ and his usual confident dignity, before leaving his room, ignoring the sleepy, startled guards and servants that rushed to attend him. Dismissive waves of his hands were all that were needed as he walked the quiet halls of the Little Palace, wondering how he could’ve ever thought the dark was eerie. This dark was like a friend, blanketing him and shielding him from prying eyes when he decided he’d had enough people fawning over him for one night. 

At first, he allowed his feet to take him where they may, curious as to what his first instinct would be. He no longer ran to his mother for comfort, not when her eyes had become daggers of hatred and sorrowful love alike. On most nights, he’d force himself back to sleep to face his demons, but on this one his body seemed to find purpose. That purpose was revealed long before he reached his destination, giving him time to reconsider, but he found he didn’t want to. And why should he? He was allowed to do as he wished.

He let the shadows bring his form into existence outside of Alina’s door, startling a serving girl so bad she let out a shriek. Or part of one, since the Darkling had shadow eat the rest of it and then hold her tongue until she was calm enough not to wake the entirety of the Little Palace.

“If I release you, you won’t make a sound to disturb the Sun Summoner’s rest. Is that clear?”

The terrified girl nodded and the Darkling released her, watching her go scampering off so fast he could almost imagine her tripping over her own feet and falling to her death in the haste to get away. It brought up memories of children running from him, screeching in horror as he reined his darkness in and stared after them in dismay. Many, many people found what he did terrifying, and he’d thought it had no longer bothered him. Not until Alina’s eyes had gone revolted after he’d first used the Cut in front of her.

“Ridiculous,” he muttered under his breath, more to himself than anything. His future equal was, for now, just a girl struggling under the weight of her destiny. What she thought of him at present shouldn’t be something he should care about, though sometimes he found himself almost happy when there was approval in her eyes.

Without a second’s more hesitation, he slipped into Alina’s room and shut the door with a soft click, padding across the floor on soundless feet to stand near her bedside. She looked almost as pale as she had in his nightmares, dark shadows under her eyes and a crease in her brow as her head turned from side to side and she muttered restlessly.

“My Summoner,” the Darkling whispered, reaching out a finger to touch her cheek. She stilled at his touch, her breathing going from erratic to normal in the space of a few seconds, and then she began to glow. It was a small light, barely enough to touch the corners of the bed, but it was a light all the same. It radiated from her skin with a soft luminescence, and the skin that had felt chilled at the Darkling’s first touch now began to warm up. She still wasn’t beautiful in the way many Grisha women were, yet the Darkling found himself more attracted to her than he’d been to any woman across the span of centuries.

“Put the stars in my night,” the Darkling whispered before he could catch himself, and his heart gave an odd sort of jump that had him draw his hand back with a sharp breath. No. These emotions weren’t what he was looking for; the girl before him wasn’t some ordinary woman to hold and love. She was meant to be his, a thing for him to use to save Ravka, nothing more and nothing less. If, over time, she came to love him, perhaps it would pass the years a little quicker. But he could not— _would_ not—love her.

He went to draw back from her, but just as he was turning away, her long fingers caught the dark sleeve of his _kefta_ , holding him in place. If she’d woken up, it didn’t matter, since he was already beginning to twist her into liking him and he could claim something romantic. Yet when he turned, she was still fast asleep, though looking more peaceful than she had.

“Shall I stay with you?” the Darkling asked quietly, wondering why it was that he offered. In time, gentle gestures would be forgotten for power, and Alina’s innocence would be burned away in the fiery heat of her own summoning. Still, the boy the Darkling had once been cried out that this time was different. This could be a true friend, not one who desired amplification. And then:

“Mal.”

Alina spoke the name like a loving caress, her voice a sigh full of longing for something that the Darkling couldn’t understand. He jerked his arm completely away, surprised at how much it stung, and abruptly stalked to the door. He paused with one hand against it, glancing back at the small form in the bed.

_Because if you died, I’d still have everything. But if I died, what would you have?_

“I would still have my darkness,” said the Darkling into the night, his voice sharp as blade though the only one it cut was him. “No one can take that from me.”

And he left the room without another word.

 

**ii.**

“How are her powers coming along?” the Darkling asked curtly, keeping a large distance between himself and the old hag seated near a roaring hearth. She stared deep into the flames, her eyes seeing nothing and everything, before they finally flickered to him. There was always some sort of initial shock in them, as if she couldn’t believe he’d become what he was, and then it always dimmed into a sort of hateful, begrudging love. After a long stare-off, the Darkling looked away first.

“You’re a fool first, and a winner last,” Baghra snarled, her gnarled hands digging deep into her chair. The immense amount of heat pouring through the room was, as always, stretching the boundaries of merely uncomfortable. The Darkling had sometimes thought to cut off that comfort of his mother’s for the sake of his own, but he could never quite bring himself to.

He understood her reasons behind it, her reasons for loving this little shack when she could have a palace with the money he brought in. They’d spent so long moving around that to call a place home felt like a luxury, no matter what manner of place it was. As for the heat… they’d spent years upon years avoiding others, so it only made sense to follow the cold no one wanted.

Running into people was far less likely in damp chilliness, and the nomadic, sparsely populated places they did stay at were often times small enough that no evidence would be left if anyone accidentally discovered their powers. Bodies were easy to bury in the snow, and the spring thaw brought with it decay that could make the Cut undiscernible from the bites of animals waking to the warmth. The only problem with constantly being cold was that it sometimes seemed to sink deep into you, and there were parts the Darkling believed no amount of heat could thaw in either him or his mother. That didn’t stop the old hag from trying, though.

“I’m not asking for the world, I’m only asking for an update,” the Darkling sighed, determined not to be meek in the face of his mother’s bitterness. She barely spared him a glance, waving one hand at him in a dismissive gesture that was disturbingly like the one he’d given to servants the night he went to see Alina.

“Everything you ask for is related to asking for the world,” said Baghra, her lips coming together to form a thin line. “First, how is she doing? Next, do you think Morozova’s stag would help? And then, is there anything else about Morozova’s journals that you haven’t told me? I know you. You start small, and by the end you’ll have someone handing you their secrets without ever knowing why. No, I won’t answer, and I won’t give you the world. Look at what you’ve done with the piece you had.”

The Darkling’s fists, which had hung loose at his sides, curled as he faced down the old woman. The Fold had been a necessary experiment, and though he’d regretted it at the time—he’d never meant for the volcra to be born—he now knew it was a blessing in disguise. He couldn’t understand why no one else saw it the way he did. Did they not understand that by expanding the Fold, he’d be saving them all? Peace couldn’t be grasped with friendliness and love, not when the entire world wanted more and more and more. He’d tried when he was younger, and all it had gotten him was attempts on his life, forcing him to flee or do something terrible to save what little he had. No, peace had to be fought for, every inch stolen with tooth, claw, and nail.

“I could have you thrown from this place for your insolence, and no one would even ask why,” the Darkling said evenly. Baghra shifted, her eyes once again finding his face.

“You wouldn’t.”

But there was a fresh trace of fear underneath as his mother searched him and found nothing but cold, unyielding truth. Would he really throw her out? In his heart of hearts, even he didn’t know; somewhere, perhaps, there were still fragments of the bond that had once bound them together as tightly as a Fabrikator’s forged bond between precious metals. He was quite sure he couldn’t kill his mother without a purpose involving the good of his country, but it didn’t matter. All that mattered was the fact that Baghra believed him.

“She has made no progress thus far,” Baghra finally huffed, drawing her shawl tighter around herself. “I will unlock her powers, however. Make no mistake about that.”

“That wasn’t so hard, now was it?” the Darkling asked with a mocking smile. Baghra spat on the floor and then made a pilgrim’s sign to ward off evil, just to get under the Darkling’s skin. He shouldn’t let it get to him, that his mother was taunting him with signs that as much suggested he was an abomination, but his skin prickled hotly and he had to turn and leave before he did something rash. As he slammed the door behind him, he heard his mother sigh deeply.

It didn’t matter. All that mattered was that he was going to get Morozova’s stag and make Alina his, one way or another.

 

**iii.**

The tracker surprised the Darkling before the Darkling even met him. Not because of his skill, not because of the way even Grisha women apparently fawned over him, but because of the letters.

The Darkling couldn’t let Alina keep into contact with her past, not when she had to forget it to join him in the future, so he had Genya bring every letter his Sun Summoner wrote to him. The first few he read out of curiosity, to see how Alina was adjusting to being a Grisha, but the rest he read out of pure selfishness. She was filled with sorrow and a nervous sort of loneliness that he recognized came with a feeling of nonbelonging, yet her point of view was refreshing.

Rather than wax lyrical praise and be a diplomat in case her letters were ever discovered and read, she put her entire self onto the pages she wrote. It was a self the Darkling had caught sight of on occasion, but never at a level this intimate. She would go on complaining about lessons with Botkin or Baghra, then pause momentarily in a tirade to scribble down some funny little memory she had of a woman named Ana Kuya. Loneliness drenched the pages and at times there were tear splatters blurring the ink, then she’d talk about something much happier, as if forcing herself to think of better times. She was terribly, wonderfully naïve, and the Darkling wanted both to corrupt and protect her innocence. He hated it. He loved it.

Though that part of how he felt was an annoyingly confusing mishmash of contradictions, his increasing irritation at the tracker most certainly wasn’t. Alina belonged to the Darkling now; whether she liked it or not, they belonged to each other. So why was it she kept writing such emotionally heavy letters to this unremarkable tracker? He was nothing to them, good only for his tracking skills, and he was unworthy of the Darkling’s Alina.

With mounting fury in his heart, the Darkling called Ivan to his room and pulled a few strings. He would see how good a tracker this Mal was. If the man happened to be lost to Fjerdan or Shu Han border patrols when the hunt took him far from home, well, it was no great loss either. In time, Alina would get over it, and she would see that letting someone go before you cared too deeply was the best move. Best she learn it the easy way, too, because the Darkling had experience with the hard way and he had no desire for even his worst enemy to learn the hard way.

There was no happiness waiting for Alina with anyone else, not as long as the Darkling lived. In time, she would come to see that. In time, when the Fold’s limits made the Darkling’s power limitless, when Ravka was a glorious nation and its people were prospering, when a heavy price had been paid but peace was at last in their grasp, she would see. And then she would forgive him, and she would love him.

 

**iv.**

The night seemed to drag on forever, even though Alina’s tracker had brought news of where he believed the stag could be found. The Darkling still listened carefully, no small amount of excitement making him shiver in delight, but his head was distracted by the taste of _kvas_ and Alina’s lips from earlier in the night. She was finally becoming pliable to his grip, giving in to him without him even having to break her spirit. When he’d pulled away from her and asked her if he could see her that night, her silence and indecision had been plain, but the dazed look of desire hadn’t. She wanted him, he knew it with every fibre of his being, and he relished the thought of letting her have him.

As the tracker stiffly finished delivering his report, his jaw tight with an anger that likely had to do with him seeing how tied together Alina and the Darkling were, the Darkling was almost tempted to let the tracker share in his reverie. How nice it would be, to crack a mocking smile and ask the tracker if he’d ever tasted sun on a woman’s lips, if he’d ever felt the lovely skin of a certain Grisha’s thighs soft underneath the pads of his fingers. The Darkling almost unfairly wanted to hurt the unremarkable boy before him, but not yet. No, first he needed the stag, and then he’d think about whether to act on Alina’s feelings for Mal. If she had them by the time he was done with her, for he intended to make her forget everything tonight.

He let the tracker go and continued with his preparations for capturing the stag, certain that things were finally going to come together. He was only slightly annoyed to find Alina had left the party early, wondering briefly if she’d ran into her tracker, but after a time he decided it didn’t matter. If she had run into him, she’d probably fight with him because he was a nothing while she was beginning to wield power beyond his dreams. She would recognize how below her the tracker was, and that would be the end of the things.

One of the servants near the Darkling looked badly startled when the Darkling smiled a ferocious grin of all teeth.

As the party drew to a close, the cresting moon hidden between clouds and the darkest part of the night rising, the Darkling went to her. He tried to slow his steps, but then wondered why he was even bothering to wait when he could finally make Alina his. In his haste, he almost knocked a servant over, his heart kicking up a notch in what almost felt like nervousness. How ridiculous; he had nothing to be nervous about, not when everything he’d ever desired was finally coming to fruition.

“Out of the way,” he ordered a servant posted in front of Alina’s door, and the girl suddenly looked as if she were about to be sick.

“ _Moi soverenyi_ , I’m very sorry, but the Sun Summoner needs rest. I was posted here by Baghra to ensure she gets it, and I’m not supposed to let anyone in.”

The pause was filled with crackling energy, and then the girl stepped aside, digging trembling fingers into her dress. The Darkling threw open the door with shadow, already knowing what he was going to see, already knowing that this was about more than the tracker. If his mother was the one who ordered it…

He howled with fury at the sight of the empty bed, then turned and strode down the halls, ignoring frightened glances at the sight of his anger roiling out from him in darkness. The only one to approach him was Ivan, who was at his side in moments, asking what needed to be done.

“Find the tracker,” the Darkling snapped harshly, keeping his eyes focused ahead of him. “Bring his unit here, have them look for Alina.”

Ivan stared uncomprehendingly for a second, and then his face twisted into a sort grimace as he realized what had happened. He turned to go, but the Darkling quickly put an arm out to stop him, gesturing him closer and letting his eyes flicker to the scant people still awake, who were doing everything they could to watch while not look like they were watching.

“And tell no one of this. If anyone asks, Alina is in her room resting. No one can know until we’ve found her or there will be hell to pay.”

“Is there anyone else who knows?” Ivan asked, and the Darkling could hear the other question in his voice. Once again, the Darkling’s thoughts went to his mother. Could he kill her? He knew he would punish her now, punish her like she’d never been punished before, but what happened between his mother and him was none of Ivan’s business.

“A serving girl posted outside her room,” the Darkling answered curtly, and Ivan nodded in assent as the Darkling released him. The girl probably had family to mourn her, people who loved and would miss her, but that wasn’t the Darkling’s problem. His problem was that if the pilgrims found out, there’d be riots and revolts, and if, Saints forbid, anything _happened_ to Alina… He couldn’t think past that. The countless loves, friendships, and heartbreaks he’d gone through couldn’t all be for nothing. The bodies he’d had to climb on to get to where he was couldn’t be in vain, not after the years he’d dedicated to this purpose.

He continued through the Little Palace, then out of it to follow a familiar path. All the while, more darkness gathered around him and his fury mounted, until when he finally stood outside his mother’s door, he believed he truly could kill her. He wrenched the door from its hinges and stood outside, watching as the old woman rose and came to stand before him.

“I won’t let you fall more,” Baghra said, holding her ground as she narrowed eyes both sad and furious at him. “You think she’s your salvation, but putting those antlers on her would be your destruction.”

“You have no say in the matter, _Madraya_ ,” the Darkling spat, his words twisting around the name like a curse. “I am who you raised me to be; strong enough to be the saviour of our nation.”

“I know,” Baghra sighed, her anger being replaced more and more with sadness. “I made a mistake in raising you like that. I didn’t realize how the years would twist you, how losing one loved one after another would turn you into something irredeemable.”

“You did your job, and our country will thank you even after I have it on its knees,” the Darkling said, darkness sliding from every corner, shadow, and crevice on the grounds. “Why can’t you see that? Why can’t you see that, after all of this, the end result will make up for it?”

“I should’ve killed you,” Baghra said sadly, the fire of her anger puttering out until all that was left was sorrow. “When I saw what you were becoming, I should’ve put an end to you. But I couldn’t. What is infinite?”

“I don’t have time for your riddles. Tell me where Alina is.”

“ _What is infinite?_ ” Baghra demanded, stepping closer. The Darkling wanted to step away from her eyes, which pinned him in place as if he were a child again. His mouth was dry as a veritable wall of darkness rose up behind him, but his mother paid no attention to it as her eyes searched his face.

“The universe. The greed of men. And… a mother’s love.”

It was too much, how much she could see and how much she couldn’t, and with a roar, the Darkling let the wall come down on her. He was blinded by anger, and she was blinded by love, and as the darkness coalesced around them, they were both blinded by fear.

 

**v.**

It was enough to know where the stag was. The Darkling had gotten to know some things about people in his life, and he knew that despite Alina’s merciful disposition, she was no saint. Like called to like, and he knew that instead of running, his Summoner would seek out power to give her an edge over him. He knew this the way he knew that she was becoming closer to being like him, that once she’d had a taste of true power she would need more. They belonged to each other, after all.

When he found signs of Alina passing through where the stag had last been sighted, along with signs of the tracker, he was hardly surprised. It was annoying, yes, but he’d decided that he didn’t really need to think of Mal as competition, not when all he was a simple pawn in a much larger game. Alina would have her fun with him, and then she would come back to the Darkling, as she was meant to.

That didn’t mean he was pleased watching the two of them put on a disgusting display mere seconds before the stag stepped out into the clearing. He had his men ready, but he had them wait just a few seconds longer to see if Alina could really do it. The tracker cajoled her, and the Darkling himself almost wanted to watch her do it, but she showed mercy again. She wasn’t his equal yet, then, but she would be.

After revealing himself and killing the stag, the Darkling was struck with the rather odd feeling that maybe there was lower to fall after all. He shoved it away as David sealed the antlers around Alina’s pretty white throat, then reached out and smirked as he felt the connection between them. Yes. This was what he wanted, this feeling of power over her, this feeling that he could do whatever he desired with her summoning abilities until she decided she was ready to become his.

She still resisted, though. Every time he dragged her power out, she struggled against it, and every time he offered her more, she turned him down. It was annoying, that she wouldn’t play along with the game as well as he’d hoped, but at the same time… She didn’t want his power. She didn’t want to use him as an amplifier, not the way other people had. He was tempted to tell her that if you didn’t use others, you would be broken, but he was sure she’d learn that in time.

“You see?” he murmured to the wind, as they began the trek back to the Little Palace. “I’m not _otkazat’sya._ I won’t _allow_ myself to be abandoned.”

He still had his mother, sightless as she may be. He still had Alina, though there was true malice in her eyes when she looked at him. He still had Ivan, though Ivan was more a Grisha servant than friend. His eyes went to the windows of his carriage, as he looked out over the cold land slowly moving by. Back when he’d spent a large part of his life in the cold, he’d had people like this too. His mother, who looked at him with fiercely proud eyes. A wife, who laughed merrily and gazed upon him as if he were the most important thing in the world. A friend, who clapped him on the back and told him his dreams of making the Grisha great would someday be more than just dreams.

The way he felt about them and the way they felt about him had all changed with time, as some of the people he loved grew to hate him, and some of the people he loved broke like the weak playthings they were. As death claimed his wife, and claimed their child, until he was left with nothing but his own weakness and the realization that wanting made you weak.

Maybe at that one point in his life, he had been _otkazat’sya_. But now he knew that with power, you could claim whatever you wanted. Even if you were made the villain of the story, you could still have bonds, though those bonds may not be as fulfilling as the ones he’d once had.

He shook himself out of those foolish thoughts, returning his gaze to Alina. She’d learn that too, when her tracker died young or withered away as an old man. All she had going for her was the Darkling, so she may as well accept it now.

 

**vi.**

He brought the tracker with him to kill, and he brought the diplomats with him to witness. There were men, women, and children on the opposite shore of the Fold, all of them innocent, and with Alina’s help he snuffed out their lights like tiny, flickering candles. He knew it was destroying pieces of her, some of them pieces he’d started to care for, and it was almost gratifying. The horror in her eyes was a mirror of horror he’d once felt towards himself, and he knew how it would change her, how it would make her harder than she’d been. He was doing more than showing off his power; he was fashioning Alina into a blade, and together they’d give up their souls to save Ravka. The souls of two were a small price, were they not?

Of course, things didn’t go as planned. Alina seized control from him, and for the first time in a long time he wasn’t sure what to do. He wanted to kill her, this girl who was becoming more like him, and the thought shook him a little. He wanted to kill her _because_ she was becoming more like him. He shouted at the guards to seize her, and she cut the skiff’s masts in half.

“You aren’t a murderer, Alina,” he said, and as she spoke her disagreement he realized that perhaps she was right. He’d been trying to turn her into one, after all. And then she left, just like in his dream, her light flickering out to plunge the ship into a darkness as complete as the one in his nightmares. He screamed after to come back, that she couldn’t possibly allow all of these people to die, but then she cut the skiff in half and he was falling.

He saw Annika’s face in his mind as he fell to the sand, which morphed into Alina’s, which morphed into his mother’s.

 _This is your punishment,_ she was saying to him, and it was something she truly had said once. As they’d tried to enter the Fold together only to discover that the people inside had become twisted, she had turned to him with a look of such profound regret that he’d had to look away. The screeches of volcra filled the air and he heard Grisha torn apart, people screaming and chaos erupting all around.

“ _Moi soverenyi!_ ” he heard Ivan yell as fire snaked out over the sand, and he tried to rise to his feet as volcra began to descend on him. He lashed out with the Cut, but there were too many, their claws tearing at his face as he thrashed within their grasp. His sins were catching up to him, tearing him apart, and even his great power wouldn’t allow him to come out of this unfazed. More people yelled for him, but their voices were going further and further away until he was alone, struggling blindly through the darkness as volcra tore pieces from him.

“Live,” he ground out under his breath as he forced his feet forward, slicing through increasingly large amounts of volcra. “Live.”

He needed to this for Ravka, he needed to endure, despite the fact that the darkness clogged his lungs and seemed to sink into his pores. He no longer knew if he was dreaming or awake, but he had to keep going. Faces flashed before his eyes, those he’d loved who’d left the world without him, people who had touched his life and made this future possible. He collapsed to his knees, pain lancing through every part of his body as tooth and claw tore into him.

He was alone, well and truly. There was no one to alleviate his pain, his own power not enough. The horror that welled up within him at this truth poked holes in the salves he’d soothed over old wounds, opening his soul and revealing just how black it had become.

“No,” he moaned, more against the loneliness than anything else. He had sacrificed every bond he had, and though he’d accomplished the Second Army, even that would soon be destroyed by the new technologies being made. He couldn’t let that happen; he needed the power to stop it, the power to keep his legacy going. So instead of shying away from what he’d become, he finally opened his arms to embrace it.

He saw his younger self, trembling over the bodies of children who’d discovered what he was. He saw himself trying to make peace with the _otkazat’sya_ , and when that failed he demonstrated just how much they should respect Grisha power. He saw himself gathering a happy young woman in his arms, then later watching impassively as she was held hostage by people who wanted him to stop being what he was. He saw years of blood, of fighting side by side with people who were now long dead, until he had finally claimed a place for Grisha in this world.

“Monster,” he taunted weakly, though whether it was to the volcra or himself he couldn’t be sure. And then the darkness of all that he’d done roared up within him, the same darkness that peered from his mother’s sightless eyes, and he raised his hands to release it. Something forbidden, which he’d never dared to do despite his knowledge of how to do it. _Merzost_.

The abominations tore from him one after another, each leaving him more empty than the last as they flowed from his hands and began to take on the volcra. They were disgusting creatures, born from nothing but blackness, and their only purpose was to kill as the Darkling forced himself up for the last time and picked a direction to walk in. Blood soaking into the sand, each step feeling like it weighed the world, he kept onwards.

His creatures fought around him, and he had no idea how long it was until he got a glimpse of Grisha fire. It lit up the Fold for a moment, illuminating the few survivors around him, and when they saw him few of them recognized that he’d come to save them. The majority of them threw their hands up as if he were some new horror come to bring hell down on their heads.

Then Ivan, bleeding from a vicious wound to his shoulder, gasped out: “ _Moi soverenyi_ ,” and the remaining survivors bolted to the Darkling’s side despite their obvious fear. He led them from the Fold that day, not victorious in keeping his fated equal by his side, but victorious in expanding the Fold. His abominations, which he dubbed the _nichevo’ya_ , would be instrumental in the next phase of his plan, and he had no time to think about how much this entire affair had taken out of him.

He gave orders that rang with dignity and tried to ignore the extra sound of hollowness beneath them. If his mother had thought he was irredeemable before, let her look upon him and his new power now. Alina could hate him all she wanted, but he was the only one who could truly understand her, and vice versa. Neither of them had asked for this power, and both of them had used it to do unspeakable things. Would continue to use it, until there was nothing left of either of them because they’d given it all to their country.

After summoning the _nichevo’ya_ that day, the Darkling no longer had nightmares that involved being scared of the dark. He had, after all, embraced it so fully that he was now a part of it. Still, another nightmare rose to take its place, as if mocking him the fact that he was powerless against his own subconscious.

He would walk through the dark until he came to a mirror with just the slightest bit of light, and when he looked into the mirror the face that stared back was young, younger than the youngest Grisha children in the school.

“Why did you abandon me?” his child reflection would whisper though he himself never moved his mouth. “Why did you make us _otkazat’sya?_ ”

“We still have her,” the Darkling would say back quietly, trying not to imagine how Alina would look at him next.

“No,” his younger self would say bleakly, tearstained face turning away from him. “All we have is darkness. And that’s all we ever _will_ have.”

And, no matter how many times he tried to deny it, his younger self would always turn away and refuse to listen anymore.


End file.
